Daisy Kenyon

One of those movies that I had seen part of somewhere along the way but never got around to seeing all of -- probably on the old Fox Movie Channel since it's a Fox movie and I can't remember the last time they ran it -- is Daisy Kenyon. So when TCM showed it as part of a night dedicated to director Otto Preminger, I recorded it in order to be able finally to watch it and write up a review. Tomorrow being Dana Andrews day in Summer Under the Stars, and with my realizing that the movie in tomorrow's schedule I was going to do a post on is one that I actually blogged about four years ago (Brainstorm, Aug. 24 at 6:00 PM), I figure that now is a good time to put up this post on Daisy Kenyon even though it's not airing on TCM tomorrow.

Dan O'Mara (Dana Andrews) is a lawyer at a prestigious firm who takes a taxi to what is probably supposed to be Greenwich Village to see fashion artist Daisy Kenyon (Joan Crawford). It fairly quickly transpires that Dan is carrying on a romantic affair with Daisy. There is, however, a fairly serious issue with this in that Dan is married to Lucille (Ruth Warrick) with two kids about to become teenagers. Not only that, but Lucille is the daughter and granddaughter of the founders of the law firm. So, because of family obligations, Dan has to break off the date he had hoped to have with Daisy.

As Dan is leaving the apartment building, he runs into another man who is about to ring to be let in, Peter Lapham (Henry Fonda). Peter is also seeing Daisy, which is possibly a response from Daisy to the less-than-stellar treatment she's been getting from Dan, although to be fair, Daisy really ought to know she's going to get that sort of treatment from a man who's cheating on his wife. Peter isn't cheating on his wife, because his wife is already really quite dead, having died in a car accident some years back. That's one of the things that prompted Peter to leave his Cape Cod home and serve in the US Army during the recently concluded war. Peter is thinking of going back to Europe to serve in the occupation army. So, as we can see, Daisy is going to have to choose between two men.

But then things get more complicated. Dan is approached by a man who wants to hire O'Mara to represent a man in an important legal case: that of a Japanese-American man who served in the army in Europe with some distinction, only to return home and find he had been dispossessed of his farm Bad Day at Black Rock-style. It's important, but not exactly remunerative. It's going to take Dan away from the clients who are paying him the big money; it's going to take him away from his wife and kids; and it's going to take him away from Daisy.

So eventually Dan returns from doing some research work on this case and finds that Daisy has suddenly gotten married to Peter! Dan probably ought to admit defeat and go back to his wife and the kids he really does love despite the way he treats their mom (who, to be fair, does have enough issues where one can understand why Dan might start looking at other women). Instead, he continues to pursue Daisy, to the point that he stupidly calls Daisy from the house and Lucille listens in on the call. She decides to file for divorce and try to get custody of the kids. In theory, this would have left Dan free to marry Daisy if she hadn't already gotten married. It's also a lot more complicated because Daisy could be the co-respondent in the divorce case.

Ben Mankiewicz, in his comments after the movie, commented that the movie didn't have much of a reputation for a long time, to the point that Otto Preminger claimed many years later not to have remembered much about it. Having watched it, I can see the reason for the lack of reputation. Everything about Daisy Kenyon is competent, and definitely not anything that the cast and crew should want to forget about having made. But, at the same time, the plot is a fairly ridiculous melodrama. It's not as extreme in having to jump through hoops to satisfy the Production Code as something like The Great Lie, but there's a lot here that strains credulity. That, and it feels competent, not an all-time great. Also to be fair, there are quite a few other 40s prestige movies that aren't that well-remembered 80 years on.

So definitely give Daisy Kenyon a watch. It's certainly interesting.